Belief in Natural Phenomena
It has already been suggested that in primitive times intentional and conscious life was ascribed to a host of natural objects and phenomena, indications of which survive in the common speech of the present day. Thus we speak of inanimate things as if they had consciousness and intelligence. We say the Weather is good or bad, the Wind furious, the Sea treacherous, the Seasons inconstant or the Earth thirsty. It is also customary to speak of the “head” or “foot” of a mountain, and “arm” of the sea and the “mouth” of a river or a cave.
Conscious action is suggested by such statement as the wind “whistles,” “howls” or “moans”; the torrent or river “murmurs”; the fields “smile” or the sky “threatens.”
These afford undoubted evidence of early belief in personality and consciousness—a belief originally simple, but later becoming more complex, monotheistic in the earlier form, developing into polytheism in assigning different deities to the various elements.